It gets worse

Alan Henness noticed an interesting shifting quality of the police reporting on the poppy-burning incident. Essentially, there’s a certain amount of confusion over whether the offense in question was mostly concerned with the arson itself, or the accompanying abusive caption which allegedly accompanied the picture.

According to some reports, the phrase “How about that you squadey cunts” was attached to the photo, and it may have been this which attracted the complaint(s) and gave ground for the arrest. I had read about this yesterday, but decided not to make it a significant point. As far as I can tell, it’s just more discussion about the rape victim’s attire. Yes, it’s a rude and insulting thing to say. I don’t doubt it would cause someone somewhere offence to read those words, and my first thought would be that anyone capable of uttering a phrase like that is likely an obnoxious twat. None of which makes a blind bit of difference to the lunacy of his being arrested over it.

Anyway, a little later Andy linked to another infuriating story about the white poppy. I mentioned the white poppy symbol briefly in my last post. It’s been around almost as long as its red counterpart, and was intended to have a more pacifist emphasis. With the red, some people in this country think it places too much emphasis on British soldiers, to the exclusion of combatants from other countries, and tacitly supports a militaristic mindset. If you want to remember everyone who’s died in war, with the intent of reinforcing ideas such as “Wow, let’s never do any of that again for any reason”, then maybe the white poppy’s for you.

It’s a low-key thing, offered as an alternative or complement to the ubiquitous popular choice. And, according to a candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner in Luton, it’s offensive and it desecrates the past.

Seriously, this is exactly what I was talking about yesterday when I mentioned the social compulsion that sometimes exists around the red poppy. In some people’s eyes, if you don’t do things our way, then you’re wrong, an outsider, and your actions are deplorable. If you dare to remember the past and honour the fallen in an unapproved fashion, then you deserve to be harangued and have any public expression of your feelings restricted.

The man who’d been laying a white wreath every Remembrance Day for 24 years, Marc Scheimann, had one English grandfather and one German – they both died in World War II, each with opposite allegiances. Their children, presumably, later married, in a rather glorious example of humanity’s ability to overcome tribal allegiances and hatred, and find common ground and solidarity.

Kevin Carroll didn’t seem interested in any of that. According to Mr Scheimann’s report:

He called me a scumbag and said when he was police commissioner he would make sure I went to jail for this.

This isn’t quite how Kevin Carroll remembers it. In his own words:

It will cause massive offence if Mr Scheimann is not prevented from laying his wreath of white poppies as they symbolise cowardice.

But he was allowed to lay it and then a drunk woman tried to remove it.

Remembrance is to pay honour but he was just there to desecrate it.

Which, frankly, doesn’t make him sound like any less of a dick.

If you’re so uninterested in the sometimes tricky details of reality, that the moment someone deviates from your accepted way of doing things even a little – even so far as to pick a different colour flower by which to remember the past with a slightly different attitude toward foreign affairs – you start to see them as an offensive and dangerous menace whose actions and words need to be suppressed…

…then, well, I don’t even know how to finish that sentence about you. But, wow. You suck.